Beyond a date, Christmas is a vibe. It’s the warm and colorful lightning against the cold weather that the occasion is known for worldwide. The craziest thing of all is that it's so normalized that you might not even experience the weather, the decorations, or the social context of Christmas. Yet, it’s an aesthetic plastered and replicated for over a century, including in video games.
Planning your gaming calendar around meaningful updates, drops, and events is a must for players to stay hooked, for the title to remain relevant, and for the word of joy to stay spreading.
Some developers have excelled at this craft; often imitated, never matched. Other communities have taken matters into their own hands to make the Christmas magic happen. One studio even released a whole campaign based around the holiday, and we’re here for all of them. Without further ado, here are some of the most memorable Christmas events in recent gaming memory.
4. GTA Online Let’s It Snow
The best way to get in the Christmas mood, besides music and lights, is snow. Relatively simple to implement, yet it adds layers of immersion and festivity, providing the perfect groundwork for new and fun memories. If it’s different, you’ll remember it, even if it’s just a little extra white on the map.
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That’s precisely what Rockstar Games aimed for when Los Santos (mind you, modeled after California) became an ice age with generous inches of snow for cars, NPCs, and chaos to leave a drag path behind.
This straightforward yet elegant touch to an already living, breathing world like GTA V hit the nail on the head for the holiday season, as it’s now tradition for Los Santos residents to expect, dress up for, and even mod after the weather change to enhance the player experience. Ho ho ho right back at y’all.
3. Spider-Man is Coming to Town
What was once just a DLC for the main game got so well-rounded and put-together that Insomniac decided to piggyback off the momentum and tremendous success to drop Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a spin-off on the original title and Miles’ first standalone game ever.
To keep the Spideys apart without having to get rid of Peter like in the animated movies, the storyline drives Mr. Parker right into the arms of MJ, who is conveniently across the pond to assist her with “research”, overstaying to enjoy the holidays with her.
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This creates the perfect storm for Miles' first protagonist role, in which he saves the city on his own during a very New York-centric holiday. Swinging in his iconic black-and-red suit across the white buildings of Manhattan was a sight to see during my first gameplay, while having a Christmas-related script really keeps the immersion locked in, with every storybeat focused on the time of year. For some reason, Spider-Man feels synonymous with Christmas after this experience, and I think that’s lovely.
2. Community Servers? More like Community Service
We’ve learned that the tiniest adjustments can make a world of difference, and no one wants to change things up as much as user-owned Minecraft servers. Run like well-oiled machines, these community-backed worlds are anything but simple.
Replacing any regular torches with Redstone ones as soon as the clock strikes midnight, creating themed attractions just for December, changing biomes at spawn point and specific locations to make the activity feel a little jollier; Minecraft hosts and their staff are insane around Christmas.
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All of these tweaks, plus your favorite squad hopping from point A to point B, is a recipe for great moments like snowball fights, snowman births, and snow angel F5 selfies. Shoutout to the server community keeping the furnace fire alive!
1. Fortnite: Winterfest Takes The Christmas Crown
Last and undoubtedly not least, Epic Games’ holiday season is hard to keep up with if you’re a competitor and a joy to be a part of as a player. Celebrating Christmas even in the Epic Games launcher, gifting games left and right throughout the month, this same timeless dynamic hit Fortnite back in 2019 with Winterfest.
A cozy cabin where you can open a present a day, with a variety of items awaiting inside. Pickaxes, emotes, and skins are all wrapped up and kept a secret until the player decides to open them.
These gifts are universal for all players, so what I love most is that Epic Games could very well give them out on the starting screen when you first boot up Fortnite for the day. Instead, the animation, location, and theme surrounding it make it all the more festive, placing Winterfest among the most beloved gaming Christmas traditions, with tryhards and casuals alike.
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